This week on End Credits, we’re kicking it old school! Quite nearly as old school as Hollywood gets as we’re reviewing the Laurel and Hardy bio-pic Stan & Ollie. Before that though, there’s some disturbing stuff we have to get through, more #MeToo fallout, and more drama from online trolls. On the lighter side though, we’ll talk about matters of removing symbolic rats, and movies based on actual non-action toys.

This Wednesday, March 6, at 2 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:

Letter Stocks. Emma Thompson made news last week when a letter was posted announcing why she was quitting the animated movie Lucky. It’s because the head of Skydance Animation, Lucky’s production company, is John Lasseter, the former head of Pixar and Disney Animation who left the company under a cloud of harassment allegations last year. So why is Thompson the only one taking a stand, and what does Skydance have to say about such a dubious hire?

Toy Story. Last week, it was proudly announced that MGM is working on a View Master movie. The 75-year-old toy that let’s you flip through 3-D slides in a binocular-like device seems like the unlikely subject of a major motion picture, but it’s the latest attempt by Mattel to turn their toys – like Masters of the Universe, Hot Wheels, and Barbie – into cinema. Still, ever the contrarians, we’ll ask the question: is it possible that they could make a good View Master movie?

The Rat Smack. Do you know better than one of Hollywood’s most accomplished directors? Well somebody does. A Kickstarter was launched last month to have the final shot of The Departed taken out of 50 Blu-ray copies because the symbolism was a little on the nose. So was this a joke? Does someone on Kickstarter genuinely think that they know better then Scorsese about how to end his movie? We might smell a rat.

Hollywood Troll. Rotten Tomatoes had to make some changes to their website when the trolls attacked a post for Captain Marvel, the next Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, and the first to feature a solo female hero. CaptainMarvel is the latest movie to get a doxxing on Rotten Tomatoes, but it’s the first time that the site has had to forcibly protect a movie from online toxic masculinity. Why are bad men on the internet trying again to ruin people’s good time?

REVIEW: Stan & Ollie (2018). Laurel and Hardy are Hollywood legends, one of the most successful and dynamic comedy acts of the 1930s, but have you ever seen a Laurel and Hardy movie? Maybe not, but you could at lease check out this well-made bio-pic which is all about the latter years of the duo as they toured the U.K. in 1953 to drum up interest for a new movie. Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly play the dynamic duo as they struggle with their legacy, and they struggle to stay relevant in a world they think has forgotten them.